When I wrote last week about the latest legal thuggery against an opponent of antivaccine pseudoscience, this time by hero of the antivaccine movement, who sued investigative reporter Brian Deer for defamation, there was one thing about the case that confused me, one aspect that didn't add up to me. Part of it was why Wakefield sued Brian Deer over an article he wrote for the BMJ a year ago, although in retrospect it's become apparent to me that it was almost certainly because the statute of limitations for a libel action in Texas is one year. More importantly, the silence of the antivaccine…

I've spent a lot of time over the years looking at cranks, examining crank science (i.e., pseudoscience), and trying to figure out how to inoculate people against crankery. Because I'm a physician, I tend to do it mostly in the realm of medicine by critically examining "alternative" medical claims and discussing the scientific basis of medicine, both with respect to those "alternative" claims and to more conventional medical claims. However, I don't limit my skepticism and critical thinking just to medicine, although lately I think that I've been "specializing" too much, almost totally…

Will it never end? First we had "America's Doctor," Dr. Mehmet Oz, credulously featuring psychic medium scammer John Edward on his show last year. Sadly, but typically, Dr. Oz was completely taken in by Edward's cold readings, even the most transparent ones. Even if his previous shows featuring Joe Mercola and a faith healer weren't enough to convince you that Dr. Oz either has no critical thinking skills or does have them but doesn't care about anything but entertainment, bread and circuses, this one should have been. My readers have now told me today that it looks as though in 2012 Dr.…

Three and a half years ago, I bought a new car. The reason why I mention this as a means of beginning this post is because that car had something I had never had in a car before, namely Sirius XM satellite radio preinstalled. Curious, I subscribed, and I now barely listen to regular radio anymore. A couple of years after I had bought the car, a new channel was added to the lineup, a channel called Radio Classics. I don't know how I discovered it, but I rapidly became hooked on what's commonly referred to as old time radio. Basically, that's classic radio of the sort that was broadcast between…

It's no secret that I've been highly critical of The Huffington Post, at least of its approach to science and medicine. In fact, it was a mere three weeks after Arianna Huffington launched her blog back in 2005 that I noticed something very distressing about it, namely that it had recruited someone who would later become and "old friend" (and punching bag) of the blog, Dr. Jay Gordon, as well as the mercury militia stalwart David Kirby, among others. As a result, antivaccination lunacy was running rampant on HuffPo, even in its infancy. Many, many, many more examples followed very quickly.…

I realize I've already written two posts about Andrew Wakefield suing investigative journalist Brian Deer, the first one pointing out how it's just another example of cranks trying to silence criticism not through producing good science to defend their views but rather through abusing legal process and starting frivolous libel suits, the second one pointing out a connection between Andrew Wakefield and Autism Trust USA that might indicate how Wakefield is getting cash to pay for this lawsuit. Through it all, I've asked one question: Why is Wakefield doing it? Well, as part of the legal…

The plot thickens. Earlier, I discussed how disgraced, struck-off anti-vaccine physician Dr. Andrew Wakefield, deciding that being humiliated once by the courts in a libel action wasn't enough, has apparently decided to have another bite at the apple. Given that he was so thoroughly humiliated in the notoriously plaintiff-friendly (for libel cases, at least) British legal system, it beggars imagination that he or his attorneys would think that he has a prayer of prevailing in Texas, but sue Brian Deer Andrew Wakefield has done anyway. His legal complaint accuses investigative journalist Deer…

If there's one thing that a crank, quack, pseudoscientist, or anti-vaccine propagandist doesn't like, it's having the light of day shined upon his activities. In fact, so much do they hate it that they have a distressing tendency to respond to science-based criticism not with science-based rebuttals (mainly because they can't given that they don't have any science to support them) but rather with legal threats. Sometimes these legal threats progress beyond just threats and into legal action, usually libel suits designed not to be compensated for damage to reputation but rather to intimidate…

Finally, I think I've found this blog's theme song: As I've asked so many times before: Dammit! Where's all that filthy big pharma lucre I've been told by quacks, cranks, and antivaccinationists that I'm getting for toeing the big pharma line? After all, if I'm going to work so hard as a pharma shill, I gots ta get paid, yo. Come on, I still want to live the dream of sitting back in my sweatpants and sweatshirt behind a massive computer screen, pouring out anti-CAM screeds, and then waiting for all that cash money to roll in as I serve my corporate masters! Lord Draconis Zeneca knows. Wait…

Let's face it. The vast majority of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or "integrative medicine" (IM) therapies are nothing more than placebo medicine. This should be so abundantly clear to readers who have followed this blog, Science-Based Medicine, and/or Neurologica Blog more than a few weeks that I shouldn't have to repeat it yet again, but I feel that it bears repeating today as an introduction to today's subject matter. CAM/IM is almost all placebo medicine, and placebos effects are poorly understood (or even misunderstood), even among physicians. It is this misunderstanding…

As hard as it to believe, it's 2012 now. (I know, I know, I say that pretty much every year.) I've also been on vacation for the last week, which makes getting back into the swing of things a bit difficult. For one thing, we seem to have suffered an infestation of particularly brain dead alt-med and antivaccine trolls that drove comment totals on some posts into the hundreds. I must admit, that was something I didn't expect between Christmas and New Years, when blogging and commenting are usually as slow as everything else outside of retail that time of year. I must admit, though, that it was…

Best analogy ever? I think it's a contender, straight from Balloon Juice: The Republican party in Iowa reminds me of a patient with a terminal disease (Romneyitis) desperately turning to alternative medacine. They've cycled through homeopathy (Bachmann), naturopathy (Cain), chelation (Perry) and aromatherapy (Paul). Now they've hit the final frontier--urotherapy. I'm glad that I've never been so desperately ill that I've contemplated drinking my own piss, but I can imagine what it might feel like if I consider the level of desperation needed to vote for Rick Santorum. I must admit, I laughed…

I kind of miss Peter Lipson on ScienceBlogs and wish he were still around. I realize it's been nearly a year and a half since he departed, but it's been a bit lonely here being the only physician blogging about quackery, the role of science in medicine, and other skeptical topics related to medicine. This point was driven home when I happened to come across a post he wrote the other day entitled Another crack at medical cranks. In it, Dr. Lipson discusses one characteristic that allows medical cranks and quacks to attract patients, namely the ability to make patients feel wanted, cared for,…

I know I said I'd probably chill this weekend and not post anything new until after New Years, but another thing showed up in my in box that--shall we say?--inspired me to post another quickie. It's Medscape's list of the Physicians of the Year: Best and Worst. It starts with the worst, and guess who shows up first? Andrew Wakefield, who is described thusly: Wakefield's MMR-Autism Vaccine Study an "Elaborate Fraud" In January, the BMJ published a series of 3 articles and editorials charging that the study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield (pictured above) and colleagues…

OK, I know I said that this morning's post would likely be the last post of 2011, but then--wouldn't you know it?--the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism had to go and post a post entitled AAPS on Vaccine Exemptions. I think it deserves a brief mention today for the simple reason that it's a perfect example of crank magnetism. It makes a lot of sense that Anne Dachel of AoA would be very impressed by the sorts of things that Dr. Jane Orient, the current president of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) because, well, the AAPS is a crank organization every bit as cranky…

Given that this is the last weekday before the end of 2011 and this quite probably will be my last post of the year (that is, unless something so compelling pops up over the weekend that it tempts me more than I can resist), I wondered what would be a good topic. Then, readers started sending me a link to the perfect topic, and I agreed that it represents a loose end that I should try to take care of before the year is up. So take care of it I will. Right before Christmas, a homeopath named Judith Acosta, who bills herself as a "licensed psychotherapist, classical homeopath, and crisis…

The other day, I pointed out that one of the characteristics of antivaccine cranks is how, no matter how much you press them, they will never, ever get specific about which vaccines they find acceptable. they'll go on ad nauseam about vaccines they despise and why, but will never admit that there are beneficial vaccines. When pressed about which vaccines should be included in the pediatric vaccination schedule, they'll spin and contort enough to bend the fabric of space-time rather than commit to admitting that a vaccine is safe and effective. Experienced antivaxers, of course, have a series…

In the process of laying down a little of the ol' not-so-Respectful Insolence on the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), Barbara Loe Fisher, and Jenny McCarthy yesterday, I briefly discussed what the term "antivaccine" means. It's a topic I've discussed at length before and that Steve Novella recently wrote about. The long version is in the links, but the short version is that, unlike the "pharma shill gambit" favored by antivaccine activists and others who aren't too fond of science-based medicine (SBM), it's not just a convenient label for supporters of SBM like me to use to…

Here we go again. In fact, I think I'm starting to see a pattern here among antivaccine organizations. You might remember that in November 2010, the antivaccine group SafeMinds bought ad space in AMC Theaters over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, one of the heaviest moviegoing time periods of the year. This use of pre-movie time to promote antivaccine propaganda resulted in a campaign by skeptics to try to persuade AMC to see the error of its ways, a campaign that was successful. Then, a few months later, the the grande dame of the antivaccine movement, arguably the woman who started the…

Another Christmas is over, and we're settling in to that strange week between Christmas and New Years when, or so it would seem, most of the world isn't working except for retail. I'm half taking the week off from work in that I don't plan on going into the office if I can possibly avoid it, but will be starting up a couple of grants for the February/March NIH cycle and dealing with a couple of nagging issues left over from before the holidays. Regular readers might have noticed that ScienceBlogs had a bit of a glitch beginning sometime in the early morning hours of Christmas morning and not…